Permanency in the News – Week of 5/14/18

Greetings Permanency Champions,

Permanency centered goals in Transitional Planning can help ensure that everyday decisions we make involving our Youth have Permanency as their foundation. This area also includes the significant changes that are forthcoming regarding our Youth as they prepare to enter adulthood and/or transition out of our systems of care. One of the biggest challenges is achieving a balance between ensuring that our Youth can both take care of themselves and find those on whom they can depend on to help get their needs met. This balance can best be met by having our Youth both identify their needs after they exit foster care as well as with whom they can partner to get their needs met on an ongoing basis. One of the most critical goals should be developing the ability and opportunity to identify, create and sustain healthy interpersonal relationships with the highest degrees of Permanency.

Permanency Success Story of the Week: Today, A Wonderful Young Man is Officially Adopted by the “Wright” Family!

You Gotta Believe – Joanne and Christopher Wright found Ryan while searching the web for a child who needed a family. One look at Ryan’s video, and they were in love! An amusement park enthusiast and science fiction buff, Ryan shared that he was also a Boy Scout. The Wrights immediately knew Ryan was the child they wanted to bring into their family. That was in early 2015 before they had even begun their parent training.

The couple then attended YGB Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting (MAPP) Classes from April-June 2015. By the time they completed coursework and finished the foster parent licensing process, Ryan had been matched with another family. Still, the Wrights never forgot him! And when that match failed, they were waiting to bring Ryan home.

Ryan moved in with the Wrights in November 2016. The next year and a half were full of challenges and joys, laughter, tears, happiness, and difficult times. Through it all, Joanne and Chris remained steadfast in their commitment to Ryan! They frequently joked that, after all he had been through, Ryan was finally with the “Wright” family! We couldn’t agree more.

Today, on Friday, May 11th, 2018, three years after this family’s journey began, is adoption day! Ryan has become Michael and is starting his life over with his loving parents, just in time for Mother’s Day.

Promoting Permanency for Teens describes what states and child welfare agencies can do to help teens thrive upon leaving foster care. The report, which the Annie E. Casey Foundation funded, places particular emphasis on the powerful role that supportive adults can play. Absent such connections, young people who exit care are more likely to experience a devastating storm of academic, physical and financial struggles.

“States are using a variety of strategies to address permanency for teens — some good, some not so good,” says Tracey Feild, director of the Casey Foundation’s Child Welfare Strategy Group. “This timely study can help policymakers and child welfare practitioners make urgently needed policy and practice changes.”

More than 23,000 young people age out of foster care each year — an increase of 21% in just two decades. Yet, young people do better when they reunify with family or gain family through guardianship or adoption, according to research. “Unless we change how we support young people — especially in their quest to be part of a loving family — they will continue to face poor outcomes when they age out of foster care,” says Feild.

Adoptions with Love – There is a famous quote that goes, “Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.” No matter how a woman became a mother, and no matter when she did, there is something to be said about her love for her children. A mother’s love is unconditional, understanding, and unending— wherever she or her children might be.

This Mother’s Day, we would like to celebrate all the women who carry a mother’s love. All the women who we carry within our hearts. We would like to honor the strength, the courage, and the selflessness that goes into being a mother, whether by birth or by adoption. The second Sunday in May marks Mother’s Day. On May 13, 2018, many of us will take time to recognize our mothers and the mother-like figures in our lives. This year, Adoptions With Love would like to remind you that every mother has a different story. There is not one single thing that defines a mother, and there are many types of mothers out there. We would like to celebrate them all…

Medium – Revised legislation has since added LGBTQ-specific services and transitional and independent living resources, as well as subsidies for higher education for children in the child welfare system. Today there are a number of valuable resources and tools to assist LGBTQ youth, enabling them to properly transition from foster care and to come in off the streets.

Denver Post – Emancipation is the worst way to exit foster care, aside from running away or dying. It means a child wasn’t reunified with parents, wasn’t adopted and wasn’t set up with a legal guardian. Kids who emancipate are turned loose to figure out life on their own, often after years as wards of the state. Also: Aged Out: A note about this series from reporter Jennifer Brown. This is Youth Homelessness – 105 sit on

Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) – This brief summarizes key characteristics of programs funded through the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) that reported at least half of the youth they served were in foster care. PREP, which aims to reduce teen pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and associated risk behaviors, is administered by the Family and Youth Services Bureau within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Funding is awarded to states and territories through formula grants (State PREP), and through a competitive process to tribes and tribal entities (Tribal PREP) and to direct service providers in states and territories that did not take State PREP funding (Competitive PREP).

Please forward this blog, via email and/or social media, to other Permanency Champions and those that could use a healthy dose of Permanency.